Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mailrus!ncar!mephisto!udel!mmdf
From: dfenyes@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu (FENYES DAVID A)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Clam alias pipe glitch?
Message-ID: <31654@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 27 Sep 90 05:37:11 GMT
Sender: mmdf@ee.udel.edu
Lines: 40

Hello,

This is addressed to Minixers with the Clam Shell--
I have patched the Shell on my own computer to run under the Coherent
operating system, and find it to be an excellent shell.  However, I
found one bug, and since the shell has been on Minix for a while, someone
may have a patch for it.  The bug is that Clam doesn't like to pipe a stream
through an alias.  Do you have it, too?  Try:

	% ls | cat			/* it works. */

Try:
	% echo cat > c
	% ls | c		  		/* it works, */

Try:
	% alias c cat
	% ls | c				/* it bombs */

Try:
	% ls | c | sort	/* it may work, but you get ENOTTY errors
	             		   from ioctl() in runalias */

I believe that runalias does something funky with the ioctl calls, since
the expanded code is not run the same way as a non-alias.  I don't believe
these calls should be getting made anyway, for piped io.  These are terminal
related calls.

I found that a Clam compiled under HPUX with -DATT with and without 
-DHASH -DSCRIPT behaves identically to my Coherent version of Clam.
Has anyone noticed and patched this?  I have emailed the author, but have
gotten no response.  The shell, by the way, is excellent to use, and I
found myself preferring it to /bin/sh even before I had the port debugged.
By the way, Coherent doesn't stink.  It's OK, really.  Minix and Coherent
users should keep a line of communication open, since were working with
similar resources. (Except we don't have the source code)

Thanks, folks --

David Fenyes 				dfenyes@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu